Making a Plan - Micro, Meso, and Macro Cycles

It’s always important to have a relatively drawn-out plan whenever you train. This is known as periodization, which, simply put, means a planned training schedule for a period of time. This block of time can be broken down into micro, meso, and macro cycles. By definition micro, meso, and macro cycles are:

Micro Cycle: A period of a training block spanning 7-14 days.

Meso Cycle: A period of a training block spanning 2 weeks – months.

Macro Cycle: An entire training block, which can span from months to years.

Years may sound like a long period of time for which to plan a training schedule, but think about Olympic athletes, who spend 4 years preparing for one event. On the smaller macro cycle end, think about someone trying to shed some pounds for beach season or trying to lose some weight for their upcoming wedding. Micro, meso, and macro cycles are just fancy ways of saying that your program is set up into different blocks and that you have a planned out program to achieve the goal that you have in mind.

Depending on your end goal, these cycles will be made up of different training modalities within the time frame of the specified cycle. I’ve touched on different training modalities in the article You Can’t Beat Physiology. There is no set specific length of time each cycle needs to be, but having a systematic process to achieve the goal makes everything a little easier. You can plan your cycles however you’d like which adds some depth, uniqueness, and variety to your program. Here are a couple examples of how these cycles work:

1. Powerlifting

For the sake of this example, let’s assume that the lifter is trying to put on a little size and improve his bench and deadlift numbers for a meet that is a year away.

Macrocycle – 12 months leading up to a competition

Mesocycle 1 – offseason 2-month block, working on recovery and maintaining general conditioning

Microcycle 1.0 – 7-day off period to let the body recover from pervious meet, walking 2 miles a day outside

Microcycle 1.1 – 7-day cycle consisting of light dumbbell (DB) and body weight (BW) exercises to get blood moving throughout the body and into the muscles

Microcycle 1.2 – 7-day cycle (repeated for 4 weeks), only performing moderate DB exercises and BW exercises

Microcycle 1.3 – 7-day cycle (repeated for 2 weeks), performing moderate to heavy DB and BW exercises

Mesocycle 2 – Mass Accumulation/Bulking (4 months)

Microcycle 2.0 – 7-day cycle (repeated for 15 weeks), consisting of a max effort upper and lower day and dynamic effort upper and lower day (4 days), 2 recovery training sessions, and 1 rest day, while in a calorie surplus 

Microcycle 2.1 – 7-day cycle, deload/recovery week

Mesocycle 3 – Improving peak strength for bench press (2 months)

Microcycle 3.0 – 7-day cycle (repeated for 7 weeks), consisting of a max effort upper and lower day and dynamic effort upper and lower day (4 days), 1 repetition upper day,1 recovery training session, and 1 rest day

Microcycle 3.1 – 7-day cycle, deload/recovery week

Mesocycle 4 – Improving peak strength for deadlift (2 months)

Microcycle 4.0 – 7-day cycle (repeated for 7 weeks), consisting of a max effort upper and lower day and dynamic effort upper and lower day (4 days), 1 repetition method hip hinge pattern day, 1 recovery training session, and 1 rest day

Microcycle 4.1 – 7-day cycle, deload/recovery week

Mesocycle 5 – Peaking/Cutting Weight Leading up to the Meet (2 months)

Microcycle 5.0 – 7-day cycle (repeated for 7 weeks), consisting of a max effort upper and lower day and dynamic effort upper and lower day (4 days), 2 recovery training sessions, and 1 rest day. During this phase lifter will be in a 250 calorie/day deficit to improve body composition.

Microcycle 5.1 – 6-day cycle, consisting of light DB/body weight exercises and recovery work to keep the body moving and prepped for meet day

Meet Day – including weigh in, increased food consumption, and performance of squat, bench, and deadlift

This is a general template and just one example of how to program for a powerlifting meet. There are also many different ways to go about doing so. Within the actual training days, there is your exercise selection and training modalities to get the result you want.

This approach can also be used with non-performance based goals-for example, someone wishing to lose a few pounds for their upcoming wedding or beach season. This can even be a simpler program than the above example.

2. Getting ready for a wedding/beach season

Macrocycle – 12 weeks 

Mesocycle 1 – Improve General physical preparedness (GPP) to Increase Metabolism

Microcycle 1.0 – 4 weeks, calorie intake stays consistent, performs high intensity interval training (HIIT) targeting all major movement patterns within an exercise session x3 days/week, performs 2 interval training days/week, and 2 off/recovery days

Mesocycle 2 –

Microcycle 2.0 –  2 weeks, deficit calorie intake of 200-300 calories/day from starting calorie intake, performs high intensity interval training (HIIT) targeting all major movement patterns within an exercise session x3 days/week, performs 2 interval training days/week, and 2 off/recovery days

Microcycle 2.1 –  2 weeks, deficit calorie intake of 200-300 calories/day from previous 2 week calorie intake, performs high intensity interval training (HIIT) targeting all major movement patterns within an exercise session x3 days/week, performs 2 interval training days/week, and 2 off/recovery days

Microcycle 2.2 –  2 weeks, deficit calorie intake of 100-200 calories/day from previous 2 week calorie intake, performs high intensity interval training (HIIT) targeting all major movement patterns within an exercise session x3 days/week, performs 2 interval training days/week, and 2 off/recovery days

Microcycle 2.3 –  2 weeks, deficit calorie intake of 100-200 calories/day from previous 2 week calorie intake, performs high intensity interval training (HIIT) targeting all major movement patterns within an exercise session x3 days/week, performs 2 interval training days/week, and 2 off/recovery days

Wedding Day or Beach Season 

Whatever you goal may be, this form of breaking it down into manageable steps and having a plan can always be applied. It can be lengthier and complex, like the one in the powerlifting meet example, or more simplified, like with the example trying to shed a few pounds. Having a general written out template is helpful for seeing the starting point and to get to where you want to go. I believe it is important to plan out your training, even if your goal is simply to maintain your fitness level. 

If you have any questions about programming or this type of program setup, leave a comment or email me at the address below.

Hope you enjoyed this article,

Ryan Goodell, CSCS 

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You Can’t Beat Physiology

Fitness goals and the various roads towards achieving them are frequently misunderstood, in my opinion. Often in conversation about fitness goals someone will state what they are trying to accomplish, but their idea of how to actually go about accomplishing it may be a little off. While there are many ways to reach a destination, knowing the physiology behind what you are doing is crucial to getting yourself on a more direct route. If you can understand these principles and physiological processes that contribute to eliciting the result you desire, you might be pleasantly surprised with the easy progress you see, instead of throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks. Let’s take a look at a few examples:

1. A common one: losing/gaining weight. When considering the physiology of weight loss or gain, there is one process that rules above all: the law of thermogenesis. Thermogenesis is simply the balance between energy in and energy out, also counted in calories. If your calories in exceed calories out, your weight goes up, and if calories out exceed calories in, you lose weight. That equation is pretty simple. Another physiological gold nugget is the fact that muscle is the most metabolically demanding part of our bodies, so the more you have, the larger calorie-burning metabolic furnace you will have.

2. Getting “huge,” or relatively huge. Taking thermodynamics into consideration again, you need to be in a calorie surplus to make those muscles bigger. If you don’t have extra supplies to make more muscle, you can’t expect to get bigger. On top of that, you need to perform strength activities where you are working at 70-75+% of your 1 rep max (RM) and increase the amount of volume you are performing, or perform ultra-sets with ~50% of 1RM and go till failure to get large quantities of volume. “Volume” refers to the number of sets x number of reps x weight being used. Increased volume stimulates the physiological process of muscle hypertrophy when you are in a calorie surplus. 

3. Running/sprinting or jumping higher. This is a more interesting example, consisting of a combination of muscle and neurologic adaptions that you are trying to improve. Muscularly, you need to improve the performance of your type 2 muscle fibers, which are you power/high force producing fibers. Conversely, type 1 fibers are closer towards the endurance side of the spectrum and are meant for prolonged activity. To stimulate type 2 fiber development, you have to perform activities such as maximal effort lifts, like squats and deadlifts, working at 90+% of your 1RM to improve maximal strength. Secondly, on the neurological side of things, performing dynamic effort lifts (like squats and deadlifts) at 50-70% of your 1RM while intending to move the weight as quickly as possible improves your ability to recruit type 2 fibers quickly and all at once. Performing plyometric jumps will also improve your ability to use your passive elastic structures to absorb and transfer force, making you more “springy.”

As you can see from the above examples, each training goal requires a slightly different stimulus to get the desired physiological result. Each training modality has a different effect on your physiology and will dictate how well you are moving towards what your end goal is. A better understanding of the physiology of what is going on will make your training more efficient and less frustrating. 

If you have any questions about additional examples of how to manipulate training to affect physiology, you can leave them in the comments below! Train smart, my friends :)

Thanks for reading,

Ryan Goodell, CSCS

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Planning and Tracking Your Training Regimen

Many people go to the gym and either do a random assortment of exercises or perform the same workout every day. Neither of these methods is very effective in the long run. A better approach is to have a plan laid out and to track your training regimen.  

It is important to have a laid-out program so you have a general idea and plan when training. The plan can always be adjusted, if needed, and keeps you on track for improving and working towards your goals. This program will add structure to your training regimen, allowing you to track where you’re going and what you’ve previously done. Plans follow a general template that should be tailored to the goal you are trying to accomplish. As you progress, you can input your weights/numbers/times into the template so you have something to look back on. Typically a template is for a given amount of time or number of training sessions. I personally like to keep my training templates and plans between 4-8 weeks. Following the completion of the program, you can look back at the numbers, weights, times, and lifts you performed and reassess how the plan went. Depending on what it looks like, you can see whether you’ve made progress and which lifts seemed to work best, and make any modifications to improve the plan for the next training cycle. Here is an example of how I track my training programs in an Excel file: 

Tracking your program doesn’t necessarily need to be this elaborate, and some just use a simple composition notebook. The overlying principle here is to plan and track what you are doing.

Tracking and recording your training program is critical if you are trying to continually make progress. This can hold true for other things in life as well. As the saying goes, “if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” This is just another carryover from training to real life that you can teach yourself through your training. Tracking your training plan will give you this ability and allow you to make some tweaks and changes to the program in order to give you better results. 

Ryan Goodell, CSCS

For consultation/personal training/coaching inquiries email: ryangoodell@weightsandstuff.com

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